paradise, loss
by lady-bluebeard
Summary: oedipus rex: oh, it is like a most terrible drug.


WARNING: Involves incest!  
And I'm sure that this is full of flaws, and that it drifts from the original story -- so bear with me.

* * *

_where three roads meet i will hold you, dead in my arms, my precious mother, _  
oedipus screams.

* * *

"Mother, tell me a story?" He'd ask, when he was too young to know better. She would just look at him, her eyes dark like thunderstorms at sea, and walk away.  
He didn't understand, didn't know that his whole life would be a damn story.

She was the unfamiliar; a part of the things he couldn't get close enough to grasp with his fingertips. A dark, beautiful, threatening thing that wouldn't abide to being touched and bothered like a wet nurse.

At night, he could hear her muttering his fathers name, over and again. Starting soft as a murmur against cotton. 'Laius, Laius...' Stronger. Louder. Even urgent.  
'_Laius...' _

He wanted her to say his name like that.

* * *

_Distance.  
Twas that the space between mother and son?  
He couldn't remember, later blames it on the repressed memories._

* * *

She wanted to laugh when she heard the tale, but all she could do was cry.  
It was so ridiculous, so disgusting - that it had to be true. Her stupid son; the pale neglected boy with the blond hair; His little muscles; His little teeth; His long eyelashes; His fumbling, childish wit. Her son would be the one to deliver her.

It was enough to make her scream.

She wanted him dead, wrung between her fingers like a snow angel, limpid and blue.  
His blond curls ought to be cut before, she thought, so she could keep them in a box close by...

She would be lying completely if she said a part of her wasn't the least bit interested in seeing the prophecy out.

* * *

She knew it was him, she knew all along. She could see her son in his face -- he still had those blue gray eyes that made you want to weep. His eyelashes, nearly feminine. And the hair, that beautiful hair that looks like it was spurn from gold.

She knew and she let it happen-- every touch, his long fingers brushing softly against her skin. Every time she murmured his name, loud and lustful. The knowing feels like weights on her shoulders that are gone only when his touch sets fire to her skin. She had given him children, how they were born neigh of ailment she could never know. It was horrible, she was so addicted to him -- she just wanted him so bad, that she couldn't think of a good defense for what she was doing.

He looks like his father, but she knows, he also looks like her son.

* * *

She was his mother.

She was his goddamn mother this whole time. The thought of it made him retch. How he had touched her- how she had touched him - the deep, passionate love that surged between them like an electrical force - all of that was unnatural, rotting and pulsating inside of them. They would never escape it.

* * *

She knew what had to be done, for once she had to do what was best for him. She took the rope, strong and thick, looping it, hanging it from the rafters. She stood up a stool. The rope was scratchy and rough against her neck. She crossed her chest, said a prayer that she didn't believe for a second. Thought of Oedipus, he would be sad. But it was for the better. She wouldn't be a sin pressed against his chest at all times, choking the air out of him. She took a breath.

She heard him last running through the halls. He was calling her in his sweet voice, anxious and unsure. He knew the truth, all of her secrets.  
_"Jocasta? Where are you?"_

And she stepped over the edge.  


* * *

He found her, swaying from side to side like a sack of grain. Her feet arched as if still in the ecstasy he had delivered her. His mother, motionless.

He heard the scream before he felt it. He couldn't stand seeing his ragdoll wife-mother hanging limp. He hated knowing that her pale skin would flush for him, nor any man, never again. He cut her down, freed her from the rope. But alas, she was free already.

He wept, openly and angrily. Why would she do something so stupid? He grasped at her, felt her skin that was already growing cold. She smelt like sadness, oceans far away. He grabbed at her clothes, sobbed into them. The black shroud she wore tore away, two little pearl headpins rolled to the floor. Clattering next to him.

To his bleary eyes, the pins shone in the dull light.

_'come play with us' _they said.  
He'd be happy to oblidge.

* * *

Long live the king.  
Long live the king.  
Long live the king,  
that sorry motherfucker.


End file.
